Some nightmares you don't wake up from
by Ocean of Ashes
Summary: You make a decision when she tells you that the cancer is terminal and that its weeks not months that you’re going to be strong and hold it together for as long as she needs you to. Then, and only then, you’re going to fall to pieces."


Author's Note: Please accept my apologies for my temporary absence from these pages. I've just moved into my new house, and anything that even vaguely involves a utility company (and a certain telephone and broadband provider in particular) has taken an _age _to sort out. As for this piece, it's one of those ideas that, like a particularly tenacious terrier, get their teeth into my ankle and won't let go, so I might as well give in to the muses and just go with it. By the way, this is about the closest to an Alex and Izzie fic I'm ever likely to write, so if that's your inclination, sit back and enjoy. Sort of. More of an Alex introspective than anything else. It's a bit of a one for the angst-monsters among you but I'd love to hear what you think of it.

Disclaimer: Oh, the usual I'm-not-making-any-profit-from-this malarkey.

_Some nightmares you don't wake up from_

You manage – somehow – to wait until the funeral is over before you run, but the second it's finished you run like Hell.

You make a decision when she tells you that the cancer is terminal and that its weeks not months that you're going to be strong and hold it together for as long as she needs you to. Then, and only then, you're going to fall to pieces.

You even agree to one of those deathbed weddings that you make everyone think is for her benefit, but in fact it's the most selfish thing you ever did. It's a lot more tragic to lose your wife than just some chick you're banging.

The nightmares start before she's even dead. Dark, awful dreams in which she is always just out of reach and you are too late to save her – falling off a cliff, getting shot by a crazed gunman, run down by a car. Each of them is different, but they always end the same way. She dies, and you're totally alone.

The way you see it, you've got three choices when the moment comes. You can drink yourself into a stupor, or work until you forget, or you can flee. Only the latter is remotely attractive.

You don't want to drink – the oblivion would be welcome but you don't want to be _that _person, even though you're scared shitless that it's a genetic inevitability.

You don't want to work either. It would be better than drinking for sure, but you can't bear the looks on people's faces at the hospital the whole time, full of pity. The cloying sympathy. And the questions. If one more person asks you how you are doing you're going to take a scalpel and cut their tongue out. She's dead, and it's killing you, but you _do not _want to fucking talk about it.

So really, running is the only option. Until you realise you don't have anywhere to run to.

You've always had this crazy dream to jump in the car and drive across America. To see the sights. For the Hell of it. Whatever. When you meet her, you know in an instant she's the person that you want to share the dream with. The sinking realisation that now a dream is all it can ever be makes you physically sick.

After she dies, the nightmares change. Instead, you are forced to relive your memories of her, the hundreds of mornings where you wake up next to her and roll over to see her beautiful face. Only now, you roll over and see her corpse instead. The first time it happens, you scream.

While the others are at the Emerald City Bar, at the wake, you throw a few things in a bag and head for the airport. It might not be the most sensible thing you've ever done in your life, but you have to get away from Seattle, and the enormous black hole in your existence that Izzie used to fill. Every day, you walk down the stairs in the morning expecting to see her standing in the kitchen with pancakes already cooking on the hob, as if you've forgotten she's dead, and the moment you see the empty kitchen and remember is like losing her all over again.

Sometimes, you can still smell the faintest waft of fresh muffins.

You head straight to the domestic reservations desk and ask where the next flight is headed, cursing the fact that you let your passport expire last year.

'Des Moines,' a perky assistant smiles.

Des Moines is Iowa. You can't go to Iowa. That's one of the rules of running you see; you run hard and fast and you can never, ever go back.

'Where else you got?' you ask, not caring what the answer is.

'Los Angeles.'

California. Huh. You haven't thought of that, of her. You think of the red flash of her hair and the blue of her eyes, and you make a swift decision that if there's anyone who can offer you sympathy and understanding without pity, it's Addison. She wouldn't pity you if your life depended on it. She probably wouldn't put you out if you were on fire either, but you'll worry about that later.

You stare out of the window for the whole flight, without seeing. All you can see is her. You worry that's all you'll ever see, but at the same time, you're worried it's not. You're too scared to sleep – you couldn't bear to have a nightmare on the plane.

The flight isn't anything like as long as you need it to be, and your head is still a mess as you grab your bag off the luggage carousel. You bark a request bordering on an order at the receptionist of the rental car stand and before long you are following the irritating electronic voice of the sat nav towards the Oceanside Wellness Centre.

The sky is blue, and the sea even bluer; it's stunning here but it's a long time before you notice that.

You're shown into her office and she just looks at you without getting up from behind her desk. There is something inscrutable in her eyes that you can't make out. After several minutes of silence, you start to really wish she would say something, but for the first time ever she disappoints you. She waits, hands clasped in her lap, and you wonder for a fleeting moment whether it is costing her something not to go to you. You would never guess it from her expression, but you have seen, watched, studied those hands for hours on end, and you know the knuckles are not usually that white.

Eventually, the silence closes in around you and threatens to consume you and you have to break it.

'I'm sorry,' you hear yourself saying. 'I didn't know where else to go.'

She nods and it dawns on you that she's been expecting you. Who the Hell tipped her off? No-one knows where you are. They don't even know you're gone. Or are you that fucking predictable?

One day, you'll ask her how she knew, but not today.

Now, she gets up and walks around the desk but she doesn't try to touch you. 'Alex, I'm so, so sorry. I can't begin to tell you.'

You open your mouth to snap 'don't then,' but her expression prevents you. Those beautiful eyes of hers are full of sorrow, but you were right, not a trace of pity.

For the first time, you break down and cry. The grief and loss that you have been keeping locked inside forces its way through the dam you have constructed, and it pours out of you. One tear becomes ten, then there are huge noisy, undignified sobs that completely engulf you. They wrack your body until you think you might break, but you can't stop. When she realises this, she reaches out and tries to wipe some of the tears away, then she hugs you tightly. You let her.

You cry until there are no more tears left, and your head is pounding. You're not sure how long you've been standing there in her office, in her arms, but it feels like days.

She cancels her patients and takes you back to her house on the beach and simply lets you be. It is full of light, everything painted white and soft blue, and you can feel the peace emanating from it. You can see that it has fixed her, and you hope it might have the same power for you.

That first night though, the nightmare is worse than ever. This time you see a thousand Izzies, everywhere you turn, pale and emaciated from the cancer. They are bitter, twisted versions of reality, and they are hissing '_you let me die'_ at you over and over. It is a Hell you cannot escape from, until Addison shakes you awake in the dead of night. She stays the rest of the night with you, curled up in the chair by the window, watching over you as you pretend to sleep.

As she brews coffee the next morning, you wonder if every night will be as bad as that one, but to your surprise, they're not. By the third day you manage to say Izzie's name out loud, and by the end of the week you can almost string a sentence together about how utterly and completely bereft you feel. You can even sleep, as long as Addison watches over you.

You lose track of time, but after a month or so, you call Cristina and ask her to send you the rest of your things. You suspect Meredith is a little offended you don't ask her to do it – you did live in her house, after all – but Cristina will ask less questions, and besides, she lives with Torres who knows the address to forward it to already, so it's easier all round really.

It's another month after that before you can even think about going back to work. You've got to finish your residency but you can't go back to Seattle. The nightmares still lurk, and you're scared that Addison is the only thing keeping them at bay.

You don't like to think what that might mean, so to prove a point (although Christ knows who to), you go out and pick up a girl. She's blond and pretty and looks enough like your dead wife that through your beery haze, you can kid yourself. When you call her _Izzie _by accident, she pushes you off her in disgust and you beat a hasty retreat.

Addison doesn't ask you where you've been, even though you know she can smell the cheap perfume that is clinging to your shirt.

She comes back from work one evening shortly after that with a Thai takeaway and a six pack of beer, and you notice for the first time since you've been in California that Addison glows here in a way that you haven't seen before.

As you both sit on the decking overlooking the ocean, and pick over the remains of a spicy green curry, she takes the tops off the last two bottles of beer and passes one to you, looking out at the sunset. The colour of the dying light on the water mirrors her hair. She is beautiful; a different beautiful than Izzie, but beautiful all the same.

'What are you going to do?' she asks.

She hasn't questioned you once since you've been here, and now it blindsides you. You stammer and splutter for a moment, but she ploughs on.

'It's just that I've heard there's a surgical residency spot opening up at Mount Sinai,' she says casually, tossing her hair over her shoulder, making it shimmer in the sunset. The corners of her mouth hint at a smile, and you know she's pulled some strings, but you are surprised to find that you're not offended. In fact, you're grateful.

'I mean, it's neo-natal, so I doubt you'd even be interested,' she continues, still not looking at you.

There's something in her turn of phrase that reminds you of a conversation in a supply cupboard, a million years ago.

'I'm interested,' you reply, and there is a surety in your voice that you weren't necessarily expecting to hear.

Her head snaps round to look at you and you know she has understood the reference. There is a flicker of uncertainty in her eyes. 'I only want you to stay if you want to,' she qualifies.

'Izzie was my wife.' You bring yourself to use the past tense for the first time, and you think perhaps your heart isn't bleeding quite as heavily as it was. 'I loved her. I still love her, I always will.'

It's not the first time you've made Addison's face twist with pain, and you're not proud of it, but it's important to make her understand. You are even more damaged than you were last time the two of you went through this, and she seems whole now. You don't want to drag her down with you.

'I don't expect anything from you,' she states, and you want to believe her, but you know you have to walk away. You really should walk away. Addison has always deserved better than you, and you still love Izzie. Her being dead doesn't change that.

You begin to shake your head, but you remember the nightmares. You haven't had one since that first night you were here, and you're not sure you can go through that again.

'I can't give you anything Addison. I need you to know that.'

'I know.'

'No barbeques, no teaching kids to play catch.'

'That's okay.'

'Will it still be okay in a year, or two?'

'It has to be okay. I don't have a choice, I can't have children.'

You sigh wearily. You think of a test tube in a freezer somewhere in Seattle, a promise made to Izzie as she lay dying, and of the happiness it could bring Addison. You don't mention it to her, and you doubt you ever will.

It is beautiful here, and peaceful. The sun always shines, the constant sound of the ocean lapping against the sand calms you, and you have every reason to stay. You can even feel the horror begin to lessen, but you'd go through it all again, every day, just to have five more minutes with Izzie.

Addison is watching you, as if she is waiting for an answer, even though she didn't ask a question. You're not sure what to tell her, so you sit back, and take a swig of beer. The sun finally sinks beyond the horizon, and silently, you reach out and take her hand.


End file.
